The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1887-06-23
is THERE NO REMEDY?

| l.
Hundreds of thousands of men and
women who insist that they are above
the level of the working classes are
suffering as severely from improper food
and clothing as those who earn their
daily bread by trundling the barrow
or plying the needle. Brains require
as good provender as Drawn and bone,
and the clerk pays as much for meat
and bread as the bod -carrier. The
man who breaches sermons or writes
books, the woman who designs dresses or
manipulates the telegraph key, require
as much food per day as the ditcher OF
the washcrwomar, and buy the same
raw material at the same prices.
No one of these workers would suf-
fer if he or she labored for the main
tenance of but one person. When man
declares that he cannot live on the
wages he is receiving, he unconsciously
means something very different to
what he says-he means that he cannot
support his family. This aggregation
of individuals is an uncertain quantity,
it ranges from two to ten persons.
The truth about strikes-we defy any
one to adduce proof to the contrary
| is, that those demands for increased
pay which do not originate with pro-
fessional agitators are made by men
who are appalled, and almost mad
dened by domestic requirements which
they cannot meet. On dollar day,
which is as small compensation as is paid
for adult male labor in the United
States, any working man who has only
himself to care for can live comforta-
bly-he can even enjoy some luxurles.
A smaller sum is sufficient to the mass
of women who have only themselves to
care for. But neither one dollar, nor
two, will enable man to properly
feed, clothe and house family con
sisting of himself, his wife and several
small children; still less will it meet
the demand of physician and teacher.
The real trouble of the man who has
nothing but his daily wages to depend
on begins on his wedding day. Mar
rage is honable the law honors it as
the most solemn of contracts and the
church digni6es it as a sacrament in
many countries but neither law nor
religion can teach man to increase
the purchasing power of dollar.
What then? Shall not men and
women marry? Must the joys, the
rewards, the nonors of wedlock, be
reserved for the rich alone? Not at
all, but public sentiment, public NOR
atty, the very peace of the body poi
itic, demand that marriage shall cease
to be regarded as an indulgence ex-
cusable to any one who can pay the
customary fee to a priest or parson.
Laws cannot specify the income which
a man should have before taking to
himself a wife, but public sentiment,
which is more powerful than any law
or body of laws, can make it dishon-
orable for any one to marry until
properly qualified financially, accord
ing to the condition in life. Among
the so called higher classes there is an
unwritten law that no one shall marry
until able to support a family, and
the man who transgresses it exposes
himself to the contempt of his fellows.
There is no reason why all other
classes should not establish the same
rule; for usually the sad results of i'm
provident marriages increase as average
incomes of classes lessen.
Is there anything in religion, in
sentiment, even in romance, that can
justify such inconsiderate marriages?
Does a man really love a woman as
woman deserves to be loved, if he
will ask her to stand by his side in
life -long battle for which he has made
no preparation? Does he really love,
except as the brutes love their Young,
the children whom he allows to come
into world where their only hope of
proper care is in his own insufficient
efforts? 1t is time that our sentiment
regarding marriage should be indis-
solubly welded to sense, as it already
is in every other civilized country in
the world.
IN HONOR OF THE GOOD
QUEEN.
Tuesday, Iune 2Ist, was the fftieth